Business: Waking Up to Wave Power

Capturing the energy in ocean waves has been a dream of visionary
tinkerers since at least 1799, when two Frenchmen filed a patent in
Paris for a wave-power device. Now serious research into such
contraptions is under way in both Japan and Britain.

Since August, a floating, 500-ton experimental station located 2½ miles
at sea off Japan's Honshu island has been producing 125 kw. of power.
The facility has several air chambers that are open to the sea at the
bottom and contain large floats; as the floats bob up and down, air is
pushed through nozzles in the top of the...